


Girls Don't Cry

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Family, Family Rydell, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:59:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When their eldest son, David, was killed, all the Rydells' lives changed forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls Don't Cry

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a first rough draft for RemixRedux 2006. It went no further than this, and I wasn't happy with it, so I scrapped it and wrote _The Drugs Don't Work [Cat in a Bag Remix]_ instead. But I hate to throw anything away.

There are moments in all our lives that define us, shape us, make us who we are.

For the Rydell family that moment came on September 24, 1987, the day that their son David drove his little brother up to Dartmouth, saw him settled in, stopped for a few beers with some old friends, and never came home again.

To Jacob Rydell it was not so much a defining moment in his life as the end of it. David - David, his eldest - David had been the only child of his heart. Daniel, quiet, shy, bookish Daniel - Jacob had nothing but contempt for him. Sam, the youngest, the baby genius, confused and frightened him as though he had somehow spawned an alien. And Susannah? Susannah … was a girl.

Jacob, always gruff and taciturn, retreated more and more into himself, a husk of a man, dry and hollow, with nothing to offer, nothing to give. His wife, staggering under her own sorrow, tried to be strong for both of them, but failed even to be strong for herself, bowed and bent and, ultimately broke. She went away for a long time; no-one took her place. The house fell into silence and dust.

Daniel knew that his father blamed him. Why wouldn't he? God knows, he did. He should have driven himself (never mind that David had offered, that he'd been itching to get back to his old stomping grounds, relive for one last time his past, fled, glory days); he should never have let David see how nervous he was at the prospect of leaving home, of starting a new life surrounded by strangers, losing his touchstones, his milestones, his markers, everything he depended upon to guide him through the nightmare labyrinth of life. He knew, too, that his father would not have grieved half so much if it had been Danny who'd died instead. He wouldn't, he knew, have been much of a loss to anyone.

Dan went back to his classes, finally; locked himself in his dorm room with his computer and a stack of books, doggedly making up for lost time, shutting himself off from college life, seeing no-one, making no friends.

Sam, left alone at home - except for Susannah, and Susannah didn't count; she was a girl - went looking for answers in David's empty room, took to sleeping in the bed with its unwashed sheets. Wandering around the room, picking up and examining objects at random, he gradually brought to light all of David's hidden treasures, his close-kept secrets: the porn stash under the bed, the notebook of scribbled-out bad poetry, the condoms in the bedside drawer. The rolling papers, even though David had never smoked. The dry, crumbling brown substance in the plastic bag at the back of the sock drawer. Yes: Sam knew all of David's secrets now. Knew them and, perhaps thinking to be more like David, to be more of a son to his father - shared them.

Susannah? Susannah goes to school and makes good grades; plays with her friends; comes home and does the best she can to help her family. Susannah will survive.

Susannah … is a girl.

***


End file.
